Draw an Expanding Hug!

It was their grandmother’s birthday. The big girls were making her a cake, and the boys wanted to do something special too.

“I want to make her a hug!” declared the five year old, and that gave me a great idea.

Let’s draw some expanding hugs!

This is a simple drawing activity that is loads of fun and the results are perfect as a birthday card. They would also be a lovely mother’s day or father’s day gift, or even a fun thank you!

These fun drawings look just like regular pictures, but some clever paper folding and careful matching up of lines means the arms expand into a huge hug!!

To make your own expanding hugs drawing you’ll need:

A sheet of paper – we used standard A4 printer paper.
A grey lead pencil and eraser
Markers or coloured pencils to colour in.
A black fine liner – optional.

Start with your blank piece of paper with the widest side to the top and bottom

Fold each side of your paper into the middle

Then fold each of those middle flaps in half, back to the outside edge.

Now you are ready to draw.

You need to draw something that has a long thin body which goes in the centre of the paper between the two folds, and something that has arms that can stick out to the sides. We had lots of fun drawing ‘hug-bots’ but we also play around with an octopus and a teddy bear design.

Once you’ve decided what to draw, start with the paper all folder up and sketch the head, body and legs in the middle, between the folded sides of the paper. Now add the arms on the folded part of the paper.

Next unfold the paper and draw the arms across the entire sheet of paper so they meet up with the sections you have already drawn.